Payment Due On Receipt
by BonGarland
Summary: Small, fluffy-ish hilarious-ish occurrence in the daily life of Jane Foster. Post-Avengers, Post-Thor. AU and OOC.


**Insert the usual disclaimers that accompany my madness; alternate universe, OOC moments, lack of coherent thought, etcetera. Thanks for reading xo **

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"_Where's my iPod?!" _Darcy's loud, frantic squawk echoed across the cavernous, mostly-empty research lab.

"Eye…pod?" Thor was blinking in childlike confusion. "I can well understand why your vision receptors would want to escape your cranium in particular at times Darcy, but to actually _have_ such a device? I do not give humans enough credit…"

"NO, silly, my iPod! You know, little flat metallic rectangle thingy that plays music—THERE IT IS!" Darcy interrupted herself, springing across the room with surprising agility to retrieve the strange device from its hiding place beneath a stack of graphs. Thor could see why the device would want to escape the clutches of Darcy, raucous and insane as she was at times, and he chuckled at the sight of her shaking the thing, muttering about a dead battery even as she looked ready to perform resuscitative maneuvers on the mechanism herself.

"I swear it was only missing a couple of hours…Okay, maybe a day at most…" She whined, now beginning to forage for the charging cord.

At that point Jane walked in, loaded down with an armful of heavy, laminated astrology charts. Thor rose at once upon her entrance, moving swiftly to her side to quickly unburden her of the pile. Jane smiled her thanks, brushing a heavy lock of hair out of her face before raising a brow at Darcy. The girl in question was now on all fours, crawling along the tiled floor of the lab, which probably hadn't been cleaned in years. The decorative tassels on the side of her woven beanie hat were literally creating little trails of clean tile in her wake. The lack of cleanliness was _obviously _justifiable, however, as the premise was full of scientists working on breakthroughs that would advance humanity incalculably, after all.

"Darcy, your charger is wrapped around my telescope," Jane said, pointing to the instrument, having decided to spare Darcy any more inadvertent floor-cleaning. "It's been there for the past week, actually, because I keep thinking some technological snake is attacking my equipment when I come in here…"

After a pause, Darcy muttered, "So _that's _why the battery is so low…" She trudged over to snatch up the cord irritably, only succeeding in nearly sending the $10,000 piece of equipment crashing to the floor. It was only spared by Thor's quick reflexes, and as he righted the swaying telescope, Darcy scowled, the white cord finally dangling freely from her grasp. With another incoherent grumble about it not being her week, she left the room, presumably to begin yet another quest, this time for an available power outlet.

As her footsteps receded, Jane and Thor looked at each other in grave silence for about ten seconds, before bursting into laughter simultaneously.

"I don't know if it's the fact I haven't slept in two days or what, but on rare occasions, I genuinely am very glad Darcy is around," Jane declared a moment later, moving to the pile of paperwork Thor had set down for he, and retrieving a shiny chart, unraveling it and examining the newly-printed measurements of atmospheric data. Her brow furrowed adorably as she stared at what they had gathered from the recent New York invasion, but relaxed when she felt the reassuring presence of Thor behind her.

When he broke the silence, his gravelly tones were softer than one would expect, given his size and stature.

"I too am glad she is here, for it means you are never alone." His voice was close to her ear as he leaned closer, wrapping his armored grip around her slender waist from behind. Her breath hitched with elation at the close contact, but she played it cool, tossing her hair with a small laugh and turning around within his embrace, the chart falling abandoned to the tabletop.

"Of course I'm never alone, look at all these stars and nebulas out there to keep me company, plus everything you've introduced me to, and my work with S.H.I.E.L.D?" Her tone was joking and light, but Thor could sense the distant, underlying sadness to her words, fueled by his absence, and his gaze clouded over slightly.

"That is what I'm afraid of, Jane," he murmured, leaning in and downwards to rest his forehead against hers, "You becoming so engrossed in your work that you neglect your own care." He raised a large hand to her face, gently tracing the marks of fatigue under her eyes, which closed under his ministrations as she emitted a tiny sigh.  
"I've got to keep busy when you're away, Thor," she whispered, "And with what better project than to work towards finding a sustainable gateway that'll allow us to be together when we want, with no intergalactic interference? I think I'm getting close…"

She was cut off at that moment by the power going out, leaving them in utter darkness in a matter of one second. They were both silent for a moment, then muttered "Darcy" in unison. Their joint exclamation was accompanied by screeching from a room far down the hall, which grew louder as its source stomped closer.

"Who'd have thought a single iPod charger would black out an entire research facility, I mean, come on. Really?" Darcy's whine seemed even louder with the lack of visibility.

Jane suddenly had a thought. "Darcy, you mailed that check to the power company I wrote last week, didn't you?"

There was a long silence, until a tiny cough sounded from where Darcy's voice had originated; the sound seemed amplified by unspoken guilt.

Jane pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a slow breath, while one of Thor's hands rubbed a calming pattern across her shoulder blades. She turned her head in his direction. "You're not by any chance a god of light, too, are you Thor?"

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**If you're reading this, you're awesome by default, also. ~Bon**


End file.
